


What needed to be said

by ryandarke



Category: Queen of the South (TV)
Genre: Actually not sure it is comfort, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Somewhere around 3x13, a touch of smut, just makes things harder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:04:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryandarke/pseuds/ryandarke
Summary: Trackergate - and the title says the rest...





	What needed to be said

**Author's Note:**

> OK, so you have to go with the fact that some of us are 3rd class citizens of the universe and still haven't been given the privilege of seeing Season 3. Hence, eternally grateful to what gets out there via all other sources...
> 
> Which means that in practical terms, I've no idea if this fit into the end of season timeline of events so apologies if that is offputting, and bear with me...
> 
> ...but hell, I needed to get all this out of my system... freakin' tracker in the Gameboy... have rewatched 2x11, not absolutely certain if it works with this but that is a carrot dangled for no good reason, otherwise... anyway, read on...

It was late by the time James and Javier made it back to Phoenix. Javier had slept most of the way, seemingly increasingly comfortable with the situation, in inverse proportion to James’s exponentially growing discomfort. Thankful that he didn’t have to converse with Javier, James had the length and silence of the drive to stew over his predicament. Again. He knew the reality of the situation though he wasn’t yet reconciled to it. Devon wasn’t going away; he knew that and he knew what that would have meant for Teresa and, hence, what it meant for him imminently. And though that troubled him, it was nowhere close to what troubled him most. What caused him the most deliberation was how Teresa could have suspected that he was the rat. She’d apologised and for the most part, he accepted how much she regretted her suspicion and how much that had hurt him. But that wasn’t softening the blow that it had been to know that she hadn’t trusted him, without the proof that he’d had to provide himself. Not only had he put his life on the line time and time again for her but he struggled to understand how she could believe that level of betrayal and duplicity of him, given that they spent most nights together now, that they made love most nights, and that she’d seen his soul exposed at his most vulnerable point. And yet, underneath all that, she’d believed he was a rat, that he’d betrayed her? Believed that he was OK with putting her life in danger, with putting her directly in the firing line? For what? What did she think he gained from this? He was back where he always started in this loop – a loop he’d been round numerous times now - unable to comprehend how she could believe that of him. And unable even to find an explanation that might make some logical sense, even if he didn’t agree with it. It wrecked him every time he thought his way through it and came up still short of a satisfactory answer. Any answer, in fact, satisfactory or not. 

James waited for the gate to open and drove in, pulling up outside the front door and turning off the engine. Javier stirred as silence and stillness came to. 

“Come on,” said James, brusquely “Let’s get inside.”

Javier realised he’d better move fast, grabbed his stuff and got out, following James in at a pace. 

James put his keys on the kitchen counter and without turning around said “Kelly Anne’s room’s free”. Javier followed him wordlessly. 

James returned to the kitchen, thinking a drink might help his mood. What didn’t help his mood was finding Pote and Teresa now standing in the kitchen. 

‘Hey,’ said Teresa, gently. 

‘Hey.’

‘You get back ok?’

‘As you see,’ James returned softly, hating himself for the coldness but too tired in all ways to be able to rein his mood in. It might have been more likely had Pote not been there with her but he held Pote as responsible as Teresa for doubting him, and encouraging Teresa in her suspicions. He opened the refrigerator, took a beer and headed towards the stairs. ‘Night’. 

He climbed the stairs and went into his room. Taking a swig of beer, he headed into the en suite, turning the shower on full blast. He stripped off, stepped into the shower and let the warmth of the water tumble over him, closing his eyes and feeling the heat easing into his shoulders. He just stood, letting the pattering rhythm of the water soothe a small amount of the tension and hurt that had accumulated. An unbidden image of showering with Teresa caught him off-guard. He pushed it away, quickly rinsed the soap off and got out, keen to avoid any more of those flashbacks. He towelled his hair off and dried his torso, then wrapped the towel around his waist. He headed out of the bathroom and took another mouthful of beer. It wasn’t helping at all. 

Teresa had felt the coldness of the prickly kitchen encounter and couldn’t help but feel it was somewhat self-inflicted. She was also painfully aware that she’d been standing with Pote when James returned to the kitchen – the two doubters ranged against the wronged man. Technically, there was no need for them to have talked any further. All their business had been dealt with over the phone on James’ way back and he looked tired. Her eyes followed him out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Unwittingly, she let out a deep, sad sigh and thought for a moment. She was far from certain that it was the right thing to do, but she was resolved in her action.

Pote interrupted her thoughts. ‘Did you tell him you want him to stay?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘He says he needs time to think about it.’

Pote simply nodded. There was nothing more to say. They both knew their part in James’ anguish.

‘I’ll see you in the morning, Pote. ‘Night,’ placing a hand on his arm as she passed, deeply appreciative of his understanding and solace in the situation. Nothing needed to be said for Teresa to know that he felt for her in this predicament – and that he’d be there for her on the other side of it, however it turned out. 

Changing into sweatpants and t-shirt, she thought again about what she intended to do. It might simply add fuel to the fire but she couldn’t deal with the thought of not even trying to explain her actions, to not feel that she had done everything she could to persuade him to stay. If it still wasn’t enough, well so be it, but at least she would know she’d tried everything she could. She wondered if she should get dressed again, if she was too undressed for this – but they’d shared enough intimacy by now for it not to be odd. Nonetheless, she was still uncertain and unnerved by how this might go down.

She walked lightly down the stairs and along the landing. She could see light creeping under the door, so he was still up. She knocked tentatively on the door. James knew who it was – who else could it be? Was this a good idea? He didn’t know anymore. But he didn’t want any more confrontation. Maybe it was just safer to answer her by turning out the light. The decision was taken out of his hands. Teresa feared he would ignore the knock and though she knew there were risks to this, and a certain intrusiveness, she gently opened the door. James lay in bed, one arm raised about his head, from where he’d been shielding his eyes from the light, looking at her blankly, giving nothing away. 

‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’

She closed the door quietly behind her and crossed to the bed, perching half on and half off the bottom of it. James shifted his legs to make room for her. She stared down at her hands as he waited, somewhat intrigued as to what she was going to say, how she was going to open this conversation. 

‘I’m sorry I doubted you.’

Nothing new there.

‘I know. I get that.’

‘I know you’re upset that I’ve questioned your loyalty and that I didn’t trust you. I want to explain why I let myself question you, if that’s OK.’

She paused, waiting for his agreement.

‘You knew it was Devon and you assumed I was still working for him in some way - for some reason that I can’t figure out.’

‘Yes, up to a point but that wasn’t the only reason. You put a tracker in Tony’s Gameboy, James. No-one knew about that place of Kelly Anne’s, not even Cole. The only way we could have been found there was through that device that you hid and you gave that info to Camila. There was a tracker in Guero’s necklace which led Devon to me and El Santo… I put two and two together…..’

James looked at Teresa, trying to deal with what she’d just said. It answered some of the questions that been perplexing him – but it opened a new set of issues too. 

‘So you’re saying that you think I’m capable of setting sicarios loose not just on you, but on a 9 year old boy?’

‘It was different back then. You worked for Camila – you had a job to do. I can accept that more now.’

‘Teresa, whether you believe me or not, I didn’t tell Camila where you were. God, I was stalling madly because I couldn’t do that. Camila found you anyway, without me.’

‘How?’

‘Kelly Anne’s ID was swiped at a gas station. The Feds picked that up. Camila told Denny about it and he picked it up and followed that DEA agent he was screwing. He was the one who took the Villa-Lobos brothers there. I told you Camila didn’t trust me with any of that.’

It was Teresa’s turn to sit and try to digest what she’d just heard. It answered questions that she’d long had but hadn’t dared risk pursuing the answers to – but it opened a new set of issues for her too.

‘How did Camila find that out? She was in prison…’

‘Loya went to talk to her. He took the call while he was there. Your DEA buddy was too loose with his conversation.’

Silence hung heavily in the air, both of them processing new information, working out what this meant for the situation, how it was shifted their estimation of the other. Teresa was first to speak. She’d gone this far with asking him the questions that lingered in her mind, she might as well keep going now. It couldn’t get any worse. 

‘Why didn’t you come with me at the trainyard? Why did you stick with Camila? That was your choice and what you did put me in danger with El Santo. It got me shot.’

James sat up, no longer prepared to take this lying down, figuratively or literally.

‘Come on, Teresa. You getting shot is not on me. First off, you said you were out. You’d walked away. I was getting on with business – El Santo needed paying whether you were in or not. Second, you got shot because you didn’t think I was smart enough to outplay you and you accused the wrong people, people you gave guns to. That was your doing, not mine. And third, if you don’t get why I had to finish the job with Camila instead of jumping ship because I was in love with you, then you don’t get me at all. And while we’re on the subject – if I’d gone with you and not closed things off properly with Camila, there is no way in hell she’d have reached out to us and vouched for you with Reynaldo. You’d be right where Camila kept finding herself, with no goddamn supply and all bridges burnt.’

Teresa had never seen James like this. She was caught off-guard by that mid-stream plain-as-you-like admission of his feelings for her at what she had always thought was their lowest ebb. But though he’d hardly raised his voice, there was an edge to it and from the icy delivery of his argument, she knew he was angry. But he wasn’t finished and this time he couldn’t quite keep his voice calm.

‘And the worst of it all is that you thought I would sacrifice an innocent kid to save my ass with Camila? That I’d tell someone as callous as her where he was??? Fuck, Teresa, you don’t know me at all.’

‘So why’d you put the tracker in his Gameboy, then?’ she fired right back at him, giving as good as she was getting here as the volume and temperature of the argument rose.

‘Because I can’t protect you when I don’t know where you are! How many times had you taken off already? It scares the shit out of me, Teresa.’

There it was. Right there. The bottom line.

They sat square on at each other, both shaken and somewhat stunned, gazes transfixed on each other. The atmosphere was supercharged with anger and accusation, with the emotional turbulence of the exchange, and the underlying intensity of his love and fear for her that had somehow managed to create the mightiest of misunderstandings out of the purest, most instinctively protective of intentions. Teresa reached up on her knees, took his face in her hands and kissed him hard. It caught James off-guard, and he resisted the temptation momentarily, but the hurt and anger and anguish was quickly overwhelmed by the depth of the love that he felt for her, as well as the sheer relief of finally understanding the root of the problem, even if it didn’t resolve everything. As he returned her kiss with every bit as much passion, he pulled her into his arms and down onto the bed. Part of him was warning that this was a bad idea, or worse, that it was disingenuous, dishonest even, knowing the path that he was taking tomorrow. But at the same time, there was nothing dishonest about the depth of his love for this woman, for this strong, courageous, fearless, fiercely intelligent and only slightly imperfect and occasionally fallible woman. And Christ, given all that, and knowing how excruciatingly painful it was going to be to walk away from her, he accepted and treasured the blessing of one last night with her, even if only he knew it to be so. They made love in a way they hadn’t before – intensely present with each other, Teresa crying out his name as he brought her to her climax and James feeling himself physically and emotionally wrung out and close to breaking as he came inside her, harder than he ever had in his life. He lay on top of her and inside her for a few moments, unable as yet to do anything else, but presently, thinking she’d be uncomfortable with his weight on top of her, he made to move.

‘No don’t. Just stay there. Please.’ She wrapped her arms around him and held him to her, in the most intimate and delicate of embraces. As he gathered his mind back together, he raised his head from her shoulder and turned to kiss her. He saw why she’d held on to him, as tears rolled down her cheeks. He gently wiped them away, took her face in his hands and kissed her so gently and tenderly that she felt her heart might break. 

‘I’m so sorry, James. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s alright… It’s alright.’

He held her against his chest, just stroking her hair, waiting as long as she needed till she was ready, thankful it was long enough that she didn’t see his tears.

Moments later, he returned from the bathroom, slipped back into bed, drew her into his arms and held her close. And as much as he wanted to lie there awake all night, drinking in these last moments with her, the emotional and physical exhaustion of what had gone before, and all that was about to come, quickly took hold of them both.

**Author's Note:**

> There. I've said it. But it still makes me feel sad. 
> 
> Can I just say: through S2, I was always a bit nervous of how they were going to extricate James from Camila, without compromising the values they'd clearly given him. I really didn't want it to be a cop-out of him 'following his dick' to Teresa, to quote Camila in 306. So the way they did it felt so right and so satisfying to me - kudos to those writers. And I feel it's always been true of James that he's careful to keep relationships going even with seeming opponents - just as well he was on terms with Boaz (for Camila & Isabela's sake in 213, despite Camila belittling him for it in jail in 210, and for Teresa in 306), for example. (Big James fan, not gonna lie. Love that he's absolutely fine with not being an Alpha male. A really good, well-constructed character. More kudos, writers!)
> 
> And finally, still find the crucial bits I have seen of 312 and 313 so painful to watch - good writing, beautifully acted, thanks all... and don't see relief till very late S4 at the every earliest. Ouch. Thanks for reading!


End file.
